Were shorter: at first view it should seem to refer to the length, but indeed it refers to the height of the chambers, of which the lowest chamber was highest pitched from the floor to the ceiling; the second lower pitched than the first, yet of greater height than the uppermost between the floor and ceiling. The galleries were higher than these: possibly, there might be over the uppermost chambers a fiat roof, on which, as on a gallery, they might walk from one end to another, and therefore that floor was much lower than the middle or lowest, according to the rule of architecture, which directs that the upper rooms take not up so much in their height as the lower, that the weight of the timber be not too heavy for the walls..
Related Commentaries of Ezekiel 42:5
Ezekiel 42:5
5 Now the upper chambers were shorter: for the galleries were highera than these, than the lower, and than the middlemost of the building.